The Temporal Dynamics and Stability of Black Migration to the South, 1970-2000: New Insights on Old Trends

The “New Great Migration” of blacks to the South was and continues to be one of the most important demographic shifts in recent U.S. history, and refers to a black net-migration reversal in the South from negative to positive in the 1970s for the first time since before the Great Migration of blacks out of the region in the early and middle parts of the twentieth century. While prior research has told the story of the New Great Migration with respect to the sizedimension of migration flows to the South, in this paper, we take a different approach and apply a temporal lens to consider whether more migration to the South resulted in more permanent migration with respect to the amount of time that blacks could ultimately be expected to live in the region. Motivated by conceptual and substantive debates on the inherently temporal nature of migration, we summarize the temporal dynamics and stability of black migration to the South by exploiting age patterns of region-to-region migration within and across four censuses from 1970 to 2000. We document a pronounced increase in the amount of time that blacks could be expected to live in the South beginning in the 1980s, one decade after the heralded turn-around of black net-migration, due to heightened in-migration at younger ages marking entry into the labor force. This increase was particularly pronounced for persons born in the South, a finding consistent with previous research on the importance of ties to “home” during the New Great Migration.